


Playdate

by alexandwrite



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9291608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexandwrite/pseuds/alexandwrite
Summary: Five-year-old Hajime just wants someone to see beyond his scary face to the person inside.  Six-year-old Tooru just wants to be more popular than he already is.  Can these two very different children possibly become friends?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a not-for-profit fanwork. The characters of Haikyuu!! belong to Haruichi Furudate.

Oikawa Tooru was very excited, because today he was going to add a new friend to his collection.  He was already the most popular boy in daycare, but you could never have too many admirers.

Tooru took toy after toy out of his treasure chest, arranging them in a neat line.

“What are you doing, Tooru?” Mama asked with a smile.

“I’m taking out the toys we’re going to play with today!”  He took out a twenty-five piece puzzle that he had been practicing putting together all week.  Today, he was going to put it together in zero seconds flat in front of his new friend, to show off how clever he was.  Tooru was a very clever boy.

“Well,” Mama said, “maybe you should wait until he gets here, and ask him what he wants to play?”

“Hmmmm.”  Tooru took out a robot that had light-up eyes and made beep-boop sounds, a very impressive toy that only cool boys had.  “No.  It’s my house, and I get to choose which toys we play with.”

“Tooru, that’s a bit bossy, don’t you think?  Maybe he won’t want to be friends with you if you don’t listen to what he wants.”

“Mama,” Tooru said with a perfect eyeroll, “I have tons of friends.  I know how to make friends, okaaay?”

Mama sighed.  Tooru was certainly popular, she knew, but how many of those kids would be lasting friends?  What she really wanted for her son was a lifelong friend, who liked him for who he was deep down.  And it would be nice, she thought wryly, if this friend wouldn’t let Tooru get away with being so stubborn and self-centered.

 

Iwaizumi Hajime was not excited at all.  He sat in the back seat of Mother’s car, clutching Kyo-chan.  Kyo-chan went everywhere with him, because he was a green dinosaur and he could eat any kids who made fun of him.

Mother glanced at him using the rear-view mirror.  “Hajime, won’t it be fun to meet a boy your age?”

“He isn’t my age.  You told me he is one year older than me.”  Hajime squeezed Kyo-chan.

“That’s very close, though.  There aren’t any boys that close to you in age in our neighborhood.”

“You mean there aren’t any who like me.”

Mother sighed.  She sighed a lot.  “Please try to make friends with him, Hajime.  _Please_ try.”

“Because he’s the son of your work friend?”

“That’s part of it…” Mother tried to figure out how much to say.  “But Tooru doesn’t have many friends, either.”

This surprised Hajime.  He thought he was the only one on Earth who didn’t have friends.  “Really?”

“Yes.  His mother really wants him to make a friend, so it would be kind of you to make friends with him, okay?”

“Well…okay, I guess.”

It wasn’t quite lying, Mother thought.  It sounded like Tooru didn’t have any _true_ friends, regardless of how many children followed him around in daycare.

“But if he’s mean to me I’m gonna tell Kyo-chan to eat him.”

Mother sighed an even bigger sigh.

 

Mother rang the doorbell.  Hajime had Mother’s hand in one hand and Kyo-chan in the other.  Mother let go of his hand so he used that one to hold Kyo-chan, too.  They waited for about one hundred years.  Then the door opened, to show an older lady who went to greet Mother and a little boy who was jumping up and down in excitement.

“HAJIME!”  The boy got in Hajime’s face.  He swatted Kyo-chan at the boy’s face.

“Don’t call me by my first name, that’s rude. Call me Iwaizumi-kun.”

The boy looked puzzled.  “Iwa…”  He made a sour face.  “That’s too long!”  Then his face brightened.  “I’ll call you Iwa-chan!”

This angered Hajime.  “No, call me—“

“I’m Oikawa Tooru!  You can call me what you like, I’m not picky!”  With that, he grabbed Hajime’s hand and dragged him inside.

They stopped in the living room, where Hajime caught his breath.

“Here, look at all the toys I have!” said Tooru, sweeping his arm proudly.  In one neat straight line sat a dozen toys—puzzles, stuffed animals, action figures, and more.  Tooru’s eyes were shining with excitement.  It was a little scary.  Hajime hugged Kyo-chan tighter.

“Oh, is this your dinosaur?”  Tooru asked.  “What’s his name?”

“Kyo-chan.”

“Pfft!  That’s a stupid name.  It’s not creative at all.”  Hajime’s face turned bright red.

“Tooru!” said Mama, who was back inside and getting ready to make coffee for her visitor.  “That’s very rude.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, Iwa-chan.”  He was not repentant at all, Hajime noted.  “But we’re not playing with stuffed animals yet, so put him on the sofa.  We’re doing a puzzle first.”

“Why can’t Kyo-chan help us with the puzzle?”

“Because dinosaurs went instinct before puzzles were invented, stupid!”

“It’s extinct, not instinct, stupid!”

Mother and Mama got between the boys quickly before the situation got any worse.  Each took her child to one side of the room.

“Tooru, it can be scary meeting other boys for the first time.  Maybe Kyo-chan helps him feel not as scared.  Do you understand?”

“No Mama, I don’t!  People aren’t scary at all.  If anyone’s scary, Iwa-chan’s scary!  He’s got a really scary face.  And he should listen to me because I’m popular and he’s not.  Probably because of his scary face.”

“If you don’t fix your attitude mister, you’ll be grounded for a week.”

“Yes, Mama…”

“Hajime, why don’t you let me hold on to Kyo-chan for a little while?”

“But what if Oikawa attacks me?”

Mother couldn’t help smiling a bit, as the older boy was actually much smaller than her own son.

“He won’t attack you.”

“But if he does!”

“Then Kyo-chan will come to your rescue before you get hurt at all.  Okay?”

“Okay, Mother…”

The two boys approached each other again, this time more warily.  Kyo-chan was with Mother, so Hajime had to be extra careful now.  As for Tooru, he realized that Hajime would be a harder target than he had thought.

“Iwa-chan, we’re going to do a puzzle now,” Tooru said.

Mama went “ah-hem!”

“I mean, do you want to do a puzzle now, Iwa-chan?”

“Don’t call me Iwa-chan.”  He thought about refusing the puzzle just to annoy the boy, but he did like puzzles a lot after all.  “Yes, let’s do a puzzle.”

This brought the light back into Tooru’s eyes.  He ran to the puzzle box and dumped its contents on the floor.

“Watch me, Iwa-chan!  I’m the fastest puzzle-solver in the world!”

Hajime knelt beside Tooru and tried to help, but every time he went to grab a piece, Tooru knocked his hand out of the way and grabbed it.  The puzzle was rapidly filling up, and Hajime hadn’t placed a single piece.  Tooru swatted Hajime’s hand away again, and that was the last straw.

“Oikawa!!  Let me have a piece, okay?!”

“Why should I?  I can do this puzzle better than you can!”

“We’re supposed to do it together!”

“No Iwa-chan, you’re supposed to watch me do it and tell me how clever I am!”

“You’re not clever.  You’re…an IDIOT.”

Tooru’s mouth opened wide.  No one—NO ONE—had ever called him an idiot.  He tried to make eye contact with Mama, but she and Iwa-chan’s mom had already gone upstairs, thinking the boys were going to be okay after all.  But they weren’t okay.  They were at war.

Tooru narrowed his eyes and leaned into Iwa-chan, getting right in his face.  “Even if I’m an idiot, at least I have friends.”

Hajime was taken aback.  “I-I have friends!”

“No, you don’t.  Mama said you don’t and that’s why you’re here.  So you should be grateful to me!”

“YOU should be grateful to ME!  Mother told me that _you_ don’t have friends.”

Tooru laughed in Hajime’s face.  “I do so have friends!  I have a million bazillion of them!  So if you don’t want to be friends with me, I—don’t—care!”

For a moment, Hajime looked like he was about to cry, and Tooru wished he hadn’t said what he did.  Then the look on Hajime’s face got scary, so scary that Tooru got chills.

Kyo-chan wasn’t here to protect Hajime anymore.  So now he had to protect himself.  He mustn’t cry.  He must be strong.

“Okay, Oikawa.  Let’s play another game.”

Hajime’s face was still scary, but Tooru decided to try to take charge of the situation.  “Okay.  Next, we’re going to play with action figures.”

“No.  We’re going to play tag.”

“But—“

“I’m it.  So you better START RUNNING!!”

Tooru squealed and jumped up, running as fast as he could.  But Hajime was fast, and every time he caught up with Tooru, he shoved him to the ground.  The only thing Tooru could do was to get up each time and keep running.

He ran through the dining room and into the kitchen—and smacked right into a trash can.  Tooru fell to the floor.  The trash can toppled, spilling its contents all over Tooru.  There was a banana peel on his head, juice boxes in his lap, and tomato sauce on his new t-shirt.  Never had he been so humiliated in his whole life.  He began to cry.  Hajime towered over him.

“Ha!” said Hajime.  “Look at you all covered in trash.  I should call you Trashykawa from now on!”

“Nooooo,” Tooru sobbed.

“Listen up, Trashykawa!  I HATE popular kids like you!  You’re so stuck-up!  You think everyone likes you, but the truth is, no one does!”

The moment it was out of his mouth, Hajime regretted it.  He could see real pain in the other boy’s eyes.  Tooru probably knew it all along that he had no real friends.  But it still hurts to be told.  Hajime understood that.

Tooru burst into a fresh bout of tears.  Mother and Mama were coming down the stairs, having heard the commotion.  Tooru sprang up and ran to his mother, hugging her.

“Tooru, what happened?” Mama said.  She wrinkled her nose a bit at the smell of the trash.

Mother looked horrified, thinking Hajime had dumped the trash on the other boy.

But what Tooru said surprised both of the women.

“M-mama, I don’t— _sniff_ —have any friends, do I?”

“Oh, Tooru,” said Mama sadly.

Meanwhile, Hajime decided to take action.  When a man made a mistake, he had to fix it.  So he marched up to Mother.

“Mother, where is Kyo-chan?”

Mother was about to scold Hajime, but she was stopped by the solemn look in the boy’s eye.  She pointed to a table by the front door, where she had put Kyo-chan, ready to be collected at the end of the playdate.  Hajime retrieved the dinosaur and walked over to where Tooru was standing with his mother.

“Trashy—I mean, Oikawa—“

“Nooooo!”  Tooru scrambled to hide behind his mother’s leg.  “Mama, I’m scared!” he sobbed. “He’s scary!”

Hajime shoved his dinosaur at Tooru.

“Kyo-chan doesn’t have friends, because people think he looks scary.  But he’s actually really nice.  And…”  Hajime looked away, blushing.  “He wants to be friends with you.”

Tooru looked at Hajime in surprise, his eyes and nose still dripping.  For once, he was quiet.

Uncomfortable with the silence, Hajime kept talking.  “You can keep him, okay?  He’ll protect you, so you don’t have to be scared any—!”

Hajime was cut off by what he thought at first was an attack.  But it was actually a big, big hug.

 

Twelve years later, they were still inseparable.  And Tooru still kept Kyo-chan on his bedside table.


End file.
